The innocence of Najib: The looming court battle with WSJ

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) boldly published an article claiming evidence against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, linking him with financial fraud in relation to funds from 1MDB.

WSJ was brave enough to even say it had conducted its own investigations before releasing such a statement alleging the Prime Minister of corruption.

It claims to have evidence of fund transfers direct to Najib’s bank accounts that have been sent to both the Attorney-General (AG) and the Prime Minister himself.

From a neutral standpoint, I am startled it did not show any evidence of bank transactions and did not produce any bank documents.

It produced certificates from the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) and that alone are not enough to accuse someone of financial fraud.

Next comes the question of how reliable the Wall Street Journal is when it comes to reports involving foreign politics.

In the past, there have been numerous false reports published by WSJ and some have even got them in hot soup.

In the year 2008, Singapore sued WSJ for publishing an article allegedly casting doubt on Singapore’s judiciary integrity.

When WSJ was slapped with contempt of court and was proven wrong in its reporting, all it did was apologise to its Asian readers online and never published a hard copy of the printed apology.

Hence, only the online readers saw the acknowledged apology from WSJ.

Singapore’s late Lee Kuan Yew, on multiple occasions, clashed with WSJ as he alleged it of biased reporting and even went to the extent of drastically reducing its distribution in Singapore.

The authors of WSJ also got themselves in a mess when they tragically reported on a very controversial film a few years ago that depicted Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) offensively.

They alleged that the movie was made by an Israeli-American named Sam Bacile, at a cost US$5 million and was financed by money culled from more than 100 Jewish donors.

It takes guts to reveal a name and everyone thought they had substantial evidence to make such claims. As investigations drew to a close, it was revealed that the report by WSJ was completely wrong.

There were no records of any person named Sam Bacile in U.S. or Israel. As such, the Journal was proved to be perpetuating falsehood. As time went by and the truth unfolded, it was evident that the WSJ’s spread of anti-semitism was wrong.

When people wrote to them demanding an explanation, WSJ journalists were unreachable and never responded. Finally, on the Sept 14, 2012, WSJ issued a statement of correction.

After the infamous Boston Marathon bombing, WSJ erroneously reported that police had found five additional explosive devices, two of which had been deployed. Minutes later, the federal authorities dismissed the report by WSJ as inaccurate.

In 2014, WSJ was again ridiculed for false reporting when it claimed that the electric car-maker Tesla had suffered a plunge in sales for one of its models.

The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, took to Twitter on Oct 28, 2014 and called the bluff on the report published by WSJ by revealing sales volumes and point-blank said the Journalwas “incorrect” in its reporting.

In 2015, a WSJ article entitled “The Russians Are Coming, Again”reported that Russian proxies shelled a city called Avdiyivka in Ukraine when Ukrainians ceased fire.

It was later shown that the report was mere speculation and WSJ were accused of “journalistic malpractice”.

Over the years, WSJ has been accused of deceptive journalism by various organisations around the world.

With the so-called “evidence” submitted to Najib, the only way to settle the score is a legal suit against WSJ.

Let the independent investigation teams do their work and the truth be told.

The allegation by WSJ against the Prime Minister is serious and drastic measures indeed needs to be taken if the allegation is false.